These sort of books have always seem self-disqualifying to me.
Jacqueline has a post on her blog referencing The Rules, a dating advice book whose subtitle is Time-Tested Secrets for Capturing the Heart of Mr. Right, and how it makes good economic sense.
Not having read “The Rules” I may be missing something, but it sounds like it could be a perfect manipulation tool for inconsiderate assholes. If the book’s ruleset gets widely adopted, a slightly manipulative person would only need to pretend he’s playing by those very rules. This would send out signals that indicate he’s a decent, caring partner, and fool all women that consider the ruleset a checklist that can substitute common sense.
After all, if bastards weren’t good at sending the signals a potential victim expects, and adaptable to comply with changing conditions, they wouldn’t date at all and books like these would be irrelevant.
As for the possible male manipulation advice from the book (there seems to be quite a bit as well, just by paging through the scanned book at Amazon), how valid is that advice once the technique has been made public by the book’s bestseller quality? Any man with half-a-brain who is playing the dating game on a Rules-saturated community would know that he’s being manipulated, after at least a casual leaf-through at a local Barnes and Noble. That would leave only the lazy or brain-dead susceptible to be easily roped in by those rules.
Are supporters of these books really itching to date that demographic?
So basically it’s like a misogynistic hacking project?
I’m in! Now to find a copy of the book, without paying for it…